The Bomb Along the Road
by LaineyBev714
Summary: Tracy finds out about Luke’s plans for Laura, and it literally rocks her world.


**Title: ** The Bomb Along the Road  
**Fandom:** General Hospital  
**Characters: **Tracy Quartermaine, Luke Spencer  
**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** Tracy finds out about Luke's plans for Laura, and it literally rocks her world.

**Author's Notes:** This is the first in what I'm calling my "Along the Road" series. I plan to write a series of stories about how Luke and Tracy are impacted by Laura's road to recovery.

**Disclaimer:** I own nada

The world suddenly felt off kilter, as if some god in a fit of passion, or maybe anger, had kicked the axis and everything tilted just slightly to the right. Tracy held to the banister on the staircase and tried in vain to climb it, but she couldn't get her footing and kept falling into the railing. Her body was becoming as bruised as her spirit. She grabbed on hard trying to pull herself up toward the second floor with sheer force of will, but she didn't have much will anymore.

"Let me help you, sweets," Luke said gently from the base of the steps.

Tracy closed her eyes and squeezed hard to the railing, trying not to fall, trying not to faint. Clearly he could see there was something very, very wrong, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of helping to ease her pain... heal her wounds… clean up the remnants of the blast he just caused. No, he didn't deserve to help her right now. And she deserved better. She knew that. If only she could get up the stairs.

"Don't!" Hard swallow, deep breath. "Come!" A wipe of the forehead. She was sweating profusely. "Near!" Another swallow, followed by a deep sway that threatened to knock her off her feet. "Me!" Two steps. She was nearly at the top now.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Tell it to Laura," Tracy shot back. She could hear anger in her voice, and was glad for it. While she was most definitely angry, it wasn't the most prominent emotion right now. Mostly she felt devastated and abandoned and very alone.

She channeled the anger and let it propel her the two steps to the top.

"Can I call someone to help you?" Luke asked. It sounded meek. This situation suddenly had him feeling very small and very unsure of himself. He wasn't used to feeling this way.

"No," she said in a steely voice. "You can leave me alone. You're very good at that. An expert in fact." And with that, she walked toward her room. Somehow she found the strength to turn the doorknob. Entered. Closed the door. And completely broke down. It was very un-Tracy like. But in truth, Tracy Quartermaine felt nothing like Tracy Quartermaine.

Tears streamed down her face, loud angry choking sounds escaped from her throat, and despite her best attempts to silence herself, to get it under control, she couldn't.

He could hear her anguish from the base of the steps. The cries washed over him and the weight of what had just happened began to sink in. It was inappropriate for him to be listening to her pain right now. It was inappropriate for him to help her. It was inappropriate for him to be anywhere around. So he turned to go. He didn't really have anywhere to go, but he no longer had any right to be here. The least he could do was leave. So he left.

It would have been impossible for her to have heard the door click shut, and yet the moment he left she felt a little calmer. The world began to tilt slowly back into place, and her breathing started to return to normal.

Just forty minutes before all had been right with the world. ELQ had managed to seal the deal on a messy takeover, and she found herself in control of twenty companies. Yes, ELQ controlled twenty. It was a nice round number and a very good feeling, and she'd left the office eager to celebrate—maybe a couple of drinks with the hubby and a few rounds of that ferocious flirting they did so well. At the time the idea titillated her, and put a spring in her step, and she walked into the mansion high on life and a bit, hell, horny.

It was absolutely the wrong way to be feeling when she heard what she heard.

"Dr. Legrassi?" Luke was speaking on the phone in the den as Tracy neared the room.

That name was new to her, and she tucked herself next to the doorframe to listen. Oh god how she wished she hadn't listened, wished she had trusted him enough to give him his privacy, wished she didn't know what she knew now. But she did listen, and she did know.

"Dr. Legrassi, Laura's doctors have begun round one of your drug protocol. I know you are in touch with them, but I wanted to encourage you to keep in touch with me, too. Please keep me informed. Treat me as a member of the team. I've asked the doctors here to do the same."

"Yes. Yes. I understand," Luke said into the phone.

Tracy heard Luke making sounds of agreement, and she peeked around the edge of the door to see her husband walking excitedly back and forth behind the couch. He was clearly 'up.' He had the same spring in his step as she had just moments ago. Except she had been thinking about him. He was thinking about Laura.

"Laura," she thought in the hallway tucked near the door. The name seeped into her brain and began to get comfortable there. That was when the nausea started and the world began to tilt. She squeezed her eyes tight and let her head fall back against the wall.

Luke must have heard the thump. "Buttercup?" He asked as he hung up the phone. "Do I see you there?"

He acted as though nothing were wrong. He acted as if he had nothing to hide.

She stepped into the room stone faced and gray. He knew immediately there was going to be trouble.

"What?" He asked her.

"You don't know, do you?"

"Tracy, are you okay? You look a little gray."

"Green is more like it," she muttered to herself, as she grasped the sofa table behind the couch eager to steady herself. "Gray and green and shaky. Great. Just great." This was all said under her breath as she looked hard at the floor.

"Spanky, want to share with the rest of the class?" He was clearly in a good mood.

"Is he flirting with me? Is he actually god damn flirting!" Her brain screamed the question, and it bounced off the insides of her skin, churning up a storm of rage and anger.

She looked up at him with narrow eyes, and his blood went cold. He stepped back from her and put his hands up as if he were surrendering to the cops. "Bad day, Spanky?" He meant for it to come out soft and reassuring, but as the words traveled from his brain to his mouth, it dawned on him that she might have heard him on the phone and that it might upset her. So instead of gentle, it came out sounding like a scared little boy who was backed into a corner and wasn't exactly sure how to explain himself.

"When did Laura start a drug protocol, and what is the medication supposed to do for her?" Her tone was icy, but her look was pained.

"Tracy, I didn't want anyone who knew Laura to know about this." He sounded defensive. "I didn't want to put anyone through the hell of hope if the drugs aren't going to work."

"That explains why you wouldn't tell Lulu or Leslie or even Monica. It doesn't explain why you wouldn't tell me. Why didn't you tell me, Luke?" Rage was pounding her insides, like waves on a beach that drag a little sand back into the ocean as they retreat. Each wave of anger took a little more skin, making her feel raw and battered from the inside out. She stepped closer to him to challenge him with her body. He stepped back. "Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded.

"Heck, Spanky." He was trying to gather his strength for this battle that came out of nowhere. He didn't want to fight. "Spanky, our relationship is…" He searched for the right word. "Our relationship is complicated. I'm never sure what I can tell you, and what I can't. It was best not to say anything until I knew if the drugs would cure her."

"Cure her?"

"Bring her out of her stupor." He paused and then very, very softly he said, "Bring her back to me." The words left his mouth, and immediately he saw a flash of pain on Tracy's face. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, but he realized he had hurt her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. He really cared for Tracy in a warped sort of way that was wholly unique to them.

The words cut Tracy like a knife. And like the warrior who gets braver as the battle gets tougher, Tracy stuffed down her pain, and assumed her best fighting position. Squared shoulders, firm stance, clear bright eyes. "You?" She asked. The tone was fierce and stinging, laden with accusations and meaning.

He hadn't seen her like this in quite sometime. And while it frightened him, it also turned him on. He adored this Tracy – all steely and in control. "I'm sorry darlin'," he answered her without really answering.

She glared at him, doing her best to hide the sadness that was rapidly settling over her ravaged, wounded skin like a protective salve. "So you want a divorce, then?"

"Divorce?" He was stunned. He didn't know how they had arrived at this discussion so quickly. It had been the last thing on his mind lately. They had been getting along so well.

"If you are trying to bring back your real wife," she dragged out the word 'real', "you have no reason to keep the phony one." She was trying to concentrate on the rage she was feeling, but the tone of her voice was dropping rapidly. The thought of him not being around on a regular basis made her feel empty in a way she hadn't contemplated in a very long time. It was a way she hadn't felt in a very long time.

"You're not phony," he said gently.

"So you planned on having two wives?" It came out flat and defeated. When she heard how she sounded, she flinched.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead, Tracy."

"Obviously."

"Luke," she continued in a voice that was soft yet steely, "you're going to have to leave. I'll have my lawyer start the papers…." She stopped at this point, and inhaled deeply. She couldn't believe what she was about to say. They had been getting along so well lately. She had felt so connected to him.

Somehow she found the strength to continue. The words were threatening, but the tone wasn't. "What you've done here is the equivalent of adultery. Please don't try to fight me on the money, because I will fight back hard. It'll take a few days before I get into my old fighting spirit, but once I do I'll come at you with claws so sharp, you'll get cut deep to your core. Don't fight me on this. Don't you dare."

"Tracy," he was completely taken aback. "Tracy, we have been so good together lately. How can you do this? How can you say this?"

"Me?" To say she was stunned would have been an understatement of gigantic proportions. "Let me get this straight. You left town, apparently on this drug quest. You brought the stuff back, and are now talking with some doctor in some far flung part of the world."

"Paris."

"Wherever. You started this, Luke," she continued. "You had a thirst for her, and you decided to go quench it."

"You've got it wrong, Tracy. It wasn't about me. I did it for Lulu."

She reacted to that. She felt her face go a little soft at the idea he would go to such great lengths for his child. And for just a nanosecond she felt empathy for him and sympathy for Lulu. And then it was gone. It's unlikely he ever saw it. She switched it off before it fully surfaced. Warrior Tracy had no intention of losing this fight.

"So let me get this straight." She was approaching him now all nerves and steel. She fingered the collar of his shirt and stared into his eyes. Her voice was sultry and sweet, like honey. She was testing him, taunting him, teasing him just a little. "Let me get this straight," she continued, 'you're saying that if- when- Laura comes back, you wouldn't want to be with her? Who would you want to be with – me?" She arched an eyebrow and raised her voice on the word 'me.' Both her tone and her expression dared him to go that route. She'd kill him and leave his bloody carcass in the rose garden.

"You don't know if she'll come back, Tracy. This drug isn't foolproof."

"You're ignoring the point. " She stepped back from him, and although her tone was still strong and clear, it was no longer sultry. She was no longer playing. "You can't stay in this house as a default position. You either want to be with me – for whatever reason it is – the money, the thrills, whatever. You either want to be with me or you want to be with someone else. If you want to be with someone else, get out. If you want to be with me, let someone else – Leslie, Lucky, whoever - oversee the drug protocol and promise me you won't see Laura anytime soon. Promise me or get out."

"I don't understand, Spanky. We don't exactly have a traditional relationship. Why can't I stay while we go through this? Why can't I hang around and shoot the shit with you? Drink the martinis, laugh at your father…." He was growing despondent. He loved being here. Loved fighting and flirting with her. He didn't want to go.

"So you want to stick around until you can upgrade, is that it?"

"That's not what I said."

"Yes it is; you just didn't use those words."

"Spanky, that's not how I feel."

"How do you feel, Luke?" She asked the question because she really wanted to know. And she knew right then that he could save this. That awareness sort of disappointed her. She wished she had less feeling for him. She wished she didn't give a damn about the outcome of this evening. She wished she could toss him out, pocket the 15 million and get on with her life, but that couldn't happen. That wouldn't happen. No matter how this ended this evening, Luke Spencer was going to be with her – one way or the other -for a very long time.

So she asked and waited. She knew what she wanted to hear – that he cared for her, and that they matched. Her devil to his devil. His angel to her angel. Both of them deeply flawed and extremely strong in all the same places. She had become so sure of it over the past few weeks. She knew he felt it too. She was positive, which is why this Laura thing came out of nowhere and smacked her spirit against the wall. This was a total surprise. She would have expected it a year ago, even six months ago, but not now.

He still hadn't answered her.

"Luke, how do you feel?" She asked it again.

"I don't honestly know, Spanky." His tone was soft and sad. "I have always loved Laura, but lately you and I…" He stepped forward to try to touch her, to try to establish some sort of physical connection, but she stepped back quickly and now it was she who raised her hands as if surrendering to the cops.

"No, don't touch me," she said. "Part of me wishes I could be here for you, Luke… hold your hand, wipe your forehead, comfort you when this protocol gets tough."

"Why can't you?" He asked. And then suddenly he understood.

"Because I'm your wife, Luke." She stressed the word wife. "I'm. Your. Wife."

Then she turned her back to him and walked toward the staircase, into a tilted world.

#END#


End file.
